Research shows that false information and fakes become common knowledge if we see them repeatedly. Are we living in brain compensation or illusion?

【False information becomes “common sense” if you see it repeatedly? Surprising brain illusions】
https://nazology.net/archives/150275

・A research team from the University of Cologne in Germany reported that when information is repeated, our brains tend to not only believe it, but also perceive it as “old news.

・Regardless of whether the news is true or fake, our brains perceive the repeated information as “common knowledge.

・In the experiment, participants were more likely to say that they had known the repeated information for a long time.

・Even if the information is false, the repetition of the information leads people to believe it and to strongly perceive that they have known it for a long time.

・When the same news is reported over and over again, even if the information is biased or completely false, people feel as if they have known it before, and in some cases, they consider it to be “well-known fact” or “common knowledge.

The above is a quote from the article

Are we living in a brain correction or illusion? If we don’t try to know, we can’t know; if we don’t try to see, we can’t see.

Even if they are lies or fake news, when they are told or reported over and over again, we perceive them as common sense. (It’s amazing how they become common knowledge as if we knew them before)

Doesn’t this sound somewhat familiar?

This story immediately brought to mind a news story called “Japan’s Debt”.

【”Japan’s Debt” exceeds 1,297 trillion yen, the largest ever for eight consecutive years, and the country’s finances are in a severe condition.】
https://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/html/20240510/k10014445551000.html

【Who is “Japan’s debt” and from where? The correct view of the report “Japan’s Debt is the largest ever at over 1,286 trillion yen.】
https://shueisha.online/articles/-/197181

NHK and other media outlets report on these issues on a regular basis, as they do every year, and I believe that quite a few Japanese people take the information about “national debt” as it is, as common sense.

It is also strange to hear that Japan, which has the right to issue currency and can print money, is “neck-deep in debt,

Japan’s external assets have been the largest in the world for 32 consecutive years, and the largest in the world. It is also strange to talk about Japan being troubled by debt when it is the world’s largest net foreign asset holder. (By the way, the U.S. is the last country in the world by far. (Incidentally, the U.S. is by far the last country in the world in terms of external debt. Japan buys a lot of U.S. Treasuries.)

Retained earnings, which are the profits accumulated by Japan’s major corporations, reached a record 527.7 trillion yen as of 2023 yen.

It is absurd to think that the government is going to raise taxes in order to avoid passing on the bill to the future.

But I think these information can only be known if you don’t try to know it.

If we do not try to know and just receive information repeatedly without thinking, they will probably become common knowledge, as in the study above. There is even a possibility that we will live in such an illusion.

I got a little heated up talking about Japan’s debt,

In talking about the illusion created by repeated information,

Let me give you a more casual example rather than the serious one of Japan’s debt.

【What color does this Coke can look like? Actually, it’s not red. Mysterious brain illusion】
https://karapaia.com/archives/52331591.html

The can in the image is not red at all, but somehow it is an illusion of the brain that makes it look red.

It can be said that the information that we have been given repeatedly, “Coke cans are red,” has become our common sense and is creating an illusion in our brain.

In this way, our brain is structured in such a way that it easily perceives information given repeatedly as fact or common sense.

To put it differently,

The brain thinks it knows when it is repeated.

When repeated, our brain thinks it sees.

We live our lives being bombarded with the same information over and over again,

Once in a while, I think it is important to stop and think about the premise of facts and common sense, and consciously try to know and see.

See you then

If you ask a person wearing a wristwatch to “draw a picture of your wristwatch,” few people will be able to do so accurately. This is a story in cognitive brain science, but the fact is that humans are not able to properly recognize even such familiar objects. In other words, we often live in a world where our brains have corrected (illusioned) everything we see or think we know.